The Fantastic Four is one group of Marvel heroes that has repeatedly seen the big screen and yet falls short every time. Even though their comics are popular, and they are practically staples of the Marvel universe, there still hasn’t been a good screen adaptation for them. Three movies have been released by 20th Century Fox, and a fourth was made but never saw the light of day. Now, the MCU plans on bringing the team to life once more, but fans are weary of the previous failures.
Though the team shifts a lot in the comics, adding and losing members just like the Avengers team, there is still a core ‘4’ that all the movies have used. Reed Richards is Mr. Fantastic, Susan Storm is the Invisible Woman, Johnny Storm is the Human Torch, and Ben Grimm is the Thing. Considering their popularity, and that the movies stick to this long-term team who have been beloved in the world of comics since 1961, it seems strange that not a single movie has been a success. So, with Marvel’s reboot being developed, it may be important to look back and ask the question– what have the directors or producers been doing wrong all this time?
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A Product of Their Time
The first two movies released in the 2000s, Fantastic Four (2005) and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, were tied together, and even had the same cast. The first movie was loathed by many; our own Julian Roman called it “terribly miscast. It’s poorly written, visually uninteresting, and worst of all, boring.” It did make $333 million worldwide though (even if the budget was $100 million), so Fox still wanted to give it another chance to shine, thinking they had potential with the group of heroes to do better. However, these two movies were full of inside jokes and tropes of the time, relying way too heavily on them to be able to tell the proper story. An example of this is how, even though Susan Storm is in a relationship with someone else, Reed Richards is still trying to win her over. Sure, they usually end up together in the comics, but the way he keeps pressing while he knows she’s currently with someone else doesn’t do this group any favors.
In Fantastic Four (2015), the movie took a darker turn. With the success of the MCU starting to ramp up and take over the superhero genre, it seemed like Fox wanted to try and draw some attention back to their studio as well. Though they had the X-Men movies going for them, they still tried to film another Fantastic Four. However, the other popular superhero film series at the time was The Dark Knight. The 2015 movie leaned into the dark and gritty side of the superhero genre, and while it may have worked for Nolan’s iteration of Batman, it didn’t work well for The Fantastic Four and its family dynamic, and the film did worse than the other two movies. Even its own director, Josh Trank, was dissatisfied with the film, saying, “I was 29 years old, making my 2nd film, in a situation more complicated than anything a 2nd-time filmmaker should’ve walked into.”
No Great Family Dynamics
20th Century Fox
At its core, anything about The Fantastic Four heroes is supposed to be about family. The movies seemed to forget this a lot, often pitting the characters against one another in more than just a family squabble. Some characters even do things that drive a wedge between their relationships, making the rest of the group turn away from them. An example of this is Reed Richards getting so involved with his work that he stops many of his interactions with his team, and doesn’t see how they’re falling apart around him because of his actions.
The comics treat this group of heroes much more differently. While Susan Storm and Johnny Storm are actually siblings, it goes further than that. Susan and Reed Richards are often dating, or even married, depending on the comic and what stage it decides to put their relationship in. Ben Grimm is the only one not directly related, but he is Reed’s best friend, and they were college roommates. Of course, not all families are perfect, and this group shouldn’t be expected to be either, but when all you’re doing is pitting Ben and Johnny against one another and not showing any other interactions between them, it only harms their dynamic.
Bad Characterization
The first two movies did have a better understanding of the characters than the 2015 film did, but they still didn’t do great. Instead of exploring the intricacies of the characters and who they really are as people, especially as they learn how to deal with these new powers, we were given flat characters solely focused on a single aspect of their personality. Reed Richards was singled out as the brainiac, and anything he tried to do outside of being smart seemed awkward and often didn’t end well for him. Johnny Storm was turned into a literal hothead, always finding himself in trouble due to his anger issues. Susan Storm didn’t want anything to do with her powers and wanted to be normal, meaning that her powers were never able to properly develop as a result. Poor Ben Grimm (who should probably be played by John Cena next time around) was reduced to the comic relief, even though, as the only one whose physical appearance was altered, the character had a lot more that he could have brought to the plot.
The 2015 film made the characters barely recognizable. Not only did the grim setting not work well for the group, but it took away their personalities. It’s not easy to have family dynamics and comedic relief when everything else in the movie is dark—essentially, it was necessary to strip everyone of who they were in order to fit the genre. It clearly didn’t work out well for the directors to take away everything that made The Fantastic Four so fantastic to begin with
Doctor Doom
One of the biggest villains of The Fantastic Four is Doctor Doom, so it comes as no surprise that all three movies included him in some shape or form, even in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer where he wasn’t the main villain. While it seems like a good idea to have the group face their biggest antagonist for the film, it isn’t a good idea to change him into something different from who he was in the source material. They didn’t make him a compelling character at all, reducing him to a power-hungry rich guy. As there are many villains who fit this description already, it seems insulting to put him in this position.
The true Doctor Doom is a lot more complex than the movies make him out to be. Though he is partially a vengeful super villain, he also feels that, as a rich and powerful person, he still has a sense of duty to those less fortunate to himself. The movies either downplay or outright ignore this aspect of him, focusing on him as a scheming businessman or evil dictator. For everything he does in the comics, from saving the multiverse to taking up the Iron Man mantle, it’s hard to imagine the movie versions of Doom doing anything good.
It Should Be a Sci-Fi Adventure
At its heart, the origins of The Fantastic Four gaining their powers and forming their superhero team is a sci-fi adventure. It’s not a special serum that gives them their powers, like Captain America, or an accident in a science lab on Earth, like Hulk. The team travel to space together for an experiment only to be exposed to strange cosmic rays, which gave them all their powers in a truly sci-fi setup. Not only that, but a lot of what the team does is exploring space, time, and even different dimensions to save Earth.
None of the movies have really brought this element to the group. While they got their powers from space in the middle of a cosmic ray storm, that was about all they did in space throughout the films. Everything else happened on Earth, where they were left fumbling around, trying to figure out their powers until Doctor Doom came around, and they realized only they could stop him. As rumors continue to fly about the MCU’s upcoming Fantastic Four reboot, it seems that the best thing they can do is embrace what they did with Guardians of the Galaxy and turn The Fantastic Four into the space-exploring family they were always meant to be.
